


Stranded Here Beneath It

by unquietspirit



Series: and, yes, we are a disaster [2]
Category: Real News RPF
Genre: Angst, Drunk Sex, Jealousy, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Recovery, Retelling, Therapy, WIP Amnesty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 11:45:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1687124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unquietspirit/pseuds/unquietspirit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie recovers from alcohol and Anderson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranded Here Beneath It

**Author's Note:**

> Posted as part of WIP Amnesty, but this is one I really would _like_ to finish one day. Feel free to cheer me on.

I've never been able to get blackout drunk. I tried hard to in college, and even harder later, after things got really bad with Anderson, but no matter how much I drink, I wake up the next morning  remembering everything. That used to be on my list of reasons why I couldn't have a drinking problem. Alcoholics blackout when they drink, right? And I didn't, so I wasn't an alcoholic.

Getting back to my point, though. Anderson told me he can't remember much about the first night we had sex. I do. I remember how quickly he was slurring and giggling, leaning into me, touching my arm. He probably didn't mean anything by it. Even sober, Anderson flirts a lot with no intention of following through. I don't think he knows he's doing it half the time.

So we were there, in the bar with Neil, our cameraman, and a bunch of cops, and Anderson whispered to me, so close his lips were brushing my ear, "There's this lock of your hair in the back that always sticks out and it makes me want to pet you," and then he did, and I almost purred.

Neil rolled his eyes at us from across the table, but I think he started to worry about one of the cops noticing something and deciding not to be quite so friendly to Anderson Cooper, hero of New Orleans, if it turned out he was gay. When they ordered a fourth round, he said, "We should get back to our hotel. Early flight and all."

Their sergeant offered to drive us there in his squad car. Neil took the passenger seat and Anderson and I got in the back, which was hard plastic and didn't have any seat belts. He slid into me as we went around a corner and stayed there, pressed up against my side. I remember the heat of him, where he touched me and in his eyes. The hype about them is true, you know. They really are incredibly blue.

Look, I'm not saying it was all his fault because he came onto me. He did, but he'd done it before. I knew what he was like. We were both drunk, but he was drunker -- he's a horrible lightweight -- so if anyone's to blame, it's me. Except that would mean he's to blame for all the times after, when I was drunk and he was sober, and I don't think that's fair. I got drunk so I could seduce him. I was too chickenshit to do it any other way. All he did was let it happen.

He was in the shower when I woke up, and I... panicked, basically. I got out of there as quickly as I could. Neil was in the hallway, loading all the camera gear into the elevator. He took one look at Anderson's door and another at me, and said, "Your shirt's inside-out and backwards. Might want to fix it." That was the only time he acknowledged what we were doing for years.

It wasn't only sex. A lot of the time, we'd talk before or after. He was working on his book at the beginning, and he let me read pieces and give him feedback. I'm sure I wasn't much help. He told me things that didn't make it into the book, things that I won't repeat here or ever. I told him things, too. How I started out wanting to be a reporter, until I discovered I can't stand being filmed or watching myself. When I first realized I was attracted to more than women. My ideas for a news model that wouldn't be dependent on ratings. And we talked about mundane things, like what stories we wanted to get the next day, what time we had to be at the airport. For those few hours between the sex and the morning, it was almost as if we were a couple.

 

You'll have to bear with me. Anderson's the storyteller in our operation, not me. I just make sure we get on air, and when we're on the road I make sure we have a way to get around and a place to stay for the night. Anderson would tell you all we really need is gas and water, because we can get by without food for a couple of days, which is true, but I don't like to do it. He gets so focused on work he needs to be reminded to eat and sleep. That's my job. I've seen him report with a stomach bug so severe he spent all his time between standups vomiting. I guess we have different priorities.

Sometimes we can't find the story, or we're stuck waiting for it to happen, and he'll turn to me and say, "You're a producer! Produce something!" Kind of joking, but kind of not. He gets restless when he doesn't have anything to do. Before Olbermann, I'd fuck it out of him. Well, and a few times After Olbermann, too.

I think of it with capital letters, like Before Christ, and I know that's ridiculous. Olbermann wasn't the person who changed everything, he was just the catalyst.

Anderson didn't tell me about them. I found out through an intern. She'd gone out for an anniversary dinner with her girlfriend at some restaurant and saw them there. I overheard her telling one of the bookers about it, wondering if he was planning to leave the network. "But I don't know," she said. "It seemed kinda more personal than that? Like, are they friends?"

"Not that I know of," the booker said. "What makes you think it was personal?"

The intern shrugged and said, "Just the way they were with each other. They smiled a lot, and I think they left in the same cab."

That was when I intervened. I said something like, "Hey, we're not a tabloid, and this newsroom is not the place for gossip." She stuttered an apology. I feel bad about it now, but at the time I was just focused on finding out what the hell Anderson was doing leaving a restaurant in the same cab as Keith Olbermann. I went right to his office to confront him, only I lied and said the executives were worried that he was being recruited. He was angry, as he had every right to be, and he told me it was a personal dinner and none of their business. He didn't come right out and say it was a date, but with the way he said "personal," I knew.

I don't remember leaving his office or going into mine. There was just this sort of haze, and I was thinking, _You fucking idiot, why didn't you see this coming?_ And I couldn't even ask him how it affected us, because there _was_ no "us" officially. We never talked about us, ever. But there had never been anyone else, either, because I'm sure I would've noticed. Anderson's transparent if you know how to look at him, and I've had years of practice.

So I looked, and I saw him walking to the wrong train after work one night, and I went home and had most of a bottle of bourbon. The next morning, while I was puking my guts out, I decided he deserved better than me, and if Olbermann made him happy, I wouldn't interfere. I promised myself I wouldn't.

 

What was I talking about?

Right. Well, I didn't trust myself not to do something. Especially after the skin cancer. Did you hear about that? He brushed it off, of course, but I saw him afterward, while he still had the stitches in his cheek, and I almost reached out and touched them, just to make sure he wouldn't fall apart under my hand. His skin is astonishingly pale. I wanted to strip him down and examine every inch of it. I was supposed to go on assignment with him, but I begged off. Told David to have another producer do it. Said I was too busy.

When Neil found out, he saw right through the excuses. He confronted me in my office and told me he could see how I was being torn up and that I should tell Anderson how I felt. I said I wouldn't, and he called me a coward. I agreed. We argued about it a lot after that. He even tried to force me into it, when we went on a shoot and they stuck the three of us in one room. It only had one bed and a sofa, and Neil took the sofa the first night. Anderson looked at me like he thought I was planning to jump him. I was half-hoping _he'd_ start something. I stayed awake half the night, trying not to touch him or listen to him breathe.

The next day was when he finally told me about him and Olbermann. Or was going to, anyway. I stopped him. I couldn't bear to hear it from him, flat out like that, so I said I already knew. He looked shocked. I guess he thought he'd done a good job hiding. Then I found Neil and yelled at him to stay the fuck out of it.

I think that trip was the last time I was sober for longer than two days, until now.

 

The thing you have to understand about Anderson is that he's insane, but it's a functional kind of insane. More functional than me, at any rate. Like, he eats the same thing literally every day. When we're out on assignments, he brings packaged tuna and crackers, and that's all he'll eat. He's not much better at home, either. The number of times I've heard Sanjay Gupta lecture him about nutrition....

He cares about his crew's safety, but then he does such dangerous shit with his own body it makes you want to punch him. And there's not much that can stop him once he's got his mind set on something. CNN told him once he couldn't go cover an outbreak of this virus that was killing people in Madagascar, so he applied for vacation time and told me he was going to take a camera and go by himself. I told David, who told management, and they cancelled the vacation. He was pissed; it took him ages to forgive me, not that I cared.

But it's not like he thinks he's immortal. I've heard him talk about death so much, I know. It's that he thinks he's going to die young anyway, so there's no reason to take the threat of death into account. Like he's got nothing to live for other than getting the story, and if that means dying, so be it. He comes across as selfless, but, in a way, he's the most selfish bastard I've ever met. Except me, maybe. We're well-matched there.

When he told me he wanted to go diving with sharks, he joked about getting eaten. It scared me enough to make me nauseous, and he just grinned. I knew I wouldn't be able to talk him out of it, but I thought there was no way management would say it was okay. I'm still angry at them over that. It turned out fine in the end, but if it hadn't.... I probably wouldn't be sitting here. I would've jumped into the water with him.

The worse part was not having any communication while he was below the surface. Longest twenty minutes of my life. And then he got back on the boat and he was _laughing_. Like it was a fucking roller-coaster ride. I wanted to kiss him, bite his mouth to make him stop, but of course I couldn't.

I think it was my idea to go to a bar afterward. 

 

He gives an air of being at ease with his own awkwardness. It took me years to figure out he's just better at hiding it than I am.


End file.
